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Bullroarer Update 21.3 - Beta #5 - Preview and Release Notes

Welcome to our fifth open preview of Update 21.3. These notes are for Bullroarer, released on Thursday November 30th. Both the notes and the update are a work in progress, so you should expect things will change over time. We look forward to hearing your feedback and receiving your bug reports. The server is expected to remain available through noon (server time) Monday 12/4. The server is expected to come back up Tuesday evening 12/5 with additional raid bug fixes and polish.

Please feel free to copy your current live character to Bullroarer using the LIVE transfer wizard. Any characters created or copied over the last month remain intact. Please remember that deleting a character will not allow you to re-copy from live worlds.

Focus for this Beta:
Please join us this weekend and provide feedback on The Abyss of Mordath Raid and additional changes that have been made to Monster Players. For the raid, the final boss fight should now be accessible and contain more of the final mechanics. We look forward to your feedback on tier 1 and tier 2 runs. Please note that the tier 1 locks have changed and some gear tweaks have also been made since the last preview. For Monster Player characters, several changes have been made to base Monster Player stats and traits. While this work is not yet complete, it should be an improvement from the prior set of changes. Your feedback on how these changes work in action would be greatly appreciated.

Known Issues:

The Master of Mordor Lore, Keeper of Mysteries, and High-enchanter barter vendors have not been completely updated. They contain some duplicated items, some mis-priced items, and some incorrect items.

Any "of the Abyss" set bonus helms acquired during previous Bullroarer sessions are no longer relevant (and no longer have set bonuses). This is intentional. The set bonus helms are now crafted items.

A small selection of gear from the Gorgoroth instances (Expeditions Vanguard cloak & bracelet, Mordor's Bane necklace & shoulders) are broken and missing in this particular build.

Equipment that drops in the raid should bind to account (once the bind on raid group has expired) and only bind to character on equip. Currently anything not in a selection box is bind to character on acquire (once the bind on raid group has expired).

The Abyss of Mordath third boss challenge has not been fully hooked up and third boss chests have not be placed in this build.

New in this build:

Monster Player character base stats and traits have been adjusted. Generally this should increase Creep mitigations and reduce the overall damage of critical hits (on both sides) by increasing critical defence while decreasing crit magnitude bonuses. Some racial bonuses were also updated. As before, this is very much a work in progress and benefits from feedback, so please take these changes out for a spin in the Ettenmoors.

Beorning Skill - Expose - Now usable in Bear form and Man form. In Man form skill will continue to apply mitigation reduction of +40%, but in Bear form the skill will apply a mitigation reduction of +15%.

The Caparison of Elessar's Host has a new icon.

The Featured Instance cap level rewards boxes will now drop either an Enchanted Gorgoroth Adamant or 2 Slivers of Black Steel. The Enchanted Gorgoroth Adamant will now disenchant for 40 Ashes of Gorgoroth.

Bound Black Steel Keys will now be bound to account.

PvMP - Black Arrow Explosive Arrow delayed AOE damage will only affect Free Players in the Ettenmoors and PvMP Osgiliath. The delayed AOE damage will no longer affect npcs, player pets, or mobs.

PREVIEW: Added many French and German localized strings for 21.3.

PREVIEW: JWBarry in the tavern basement will now complete Abyss of Mordath discovery, tier1, and tier2 completion deeds for level 115 characters.

Notes:

To enter the new Raid, you will need to Discover the Abyss of Mordath. Find the door in the Chamber of the Watchers in the lower levels of Barad-dur (Western edge of the Barad-dur map on the lower corridor branching).

Abyss of Mordath - The new raid uses a new raid lock technology that separates weekly raid quest progress from raid chest looting. There are weekly 'The Abyss of Mordath (Tier X)' quests. The state of that quest (current objective) will allow you (and your raid group) to skip past the the bosses defeated by the first member of the party to cross the line at the beginning of the instance. Simply use the banner pole.

Instance chests can now drop items that are "Fellowship Tradeable". These items can be freely traded amongst fellowship / raid members that were present in the instance space when the chest was created, until the Fellowship Tradeable timer expires. These items will list a "Item binds in:" timer in their tooltip. These items cannot be mailed or auctioned. These items cannot be stacked until the Fellowship Tradeable timer expires. Currently only The Abyss of Mordath chests use this new tech.

Abyss of Mordath rewards:

Incomparable set gear will drop from raid chests (in a picker box so you can select the set piece right for your character). This incomparable gear will be item level 345, and will have a chance to receive bonus item levels when it comes out of the box.

The Incomparable set gear helms, incomparable pocket items, and incomparable necklaces will be craftable items, and will require a fragment of the abyss crafting component from the raid.

Other incomparable pieces from the raid (essences, other jewellery) and all rare gear from the raid will be item level 337.

Once you have completed the Tier 2 raid deed, you will be able to barter for all of the incomparable raid gear on the Masters of Mordor Lore. This allows you to use Ash of Gorgorth to barter for pieces that just haven't dropped for you in the raid. The bartered gear does not have a chance to receive bonus item levels. Note that npcs in this current build may have some gear incorrectly available for barter.

Item level 337 incomparable armour (without set bonuses, not including the helm), rings, earrings, bracelets, offhands, and essences will be available in Gorgoroth lootboxes.

Rare item level 337 gear of all types will be available in the raid, in Gorgoroth lootboxes, and for barter with no restrictions.

Preview - PvMP: Many Monster Player stats and attributes have been adjusted as a start to achieving better balance in the Ettenmoors and Osgiliath. THIS WORK IS NOT DONE and we welcome continued feedback!

The npc "Dust" in the Eyes & Guard tavern stairwell offers a quest that rewards Ash of Gorgoroth.

Ransroth in the tavern now has 'Mordor - Conquest of Gorgoroth' reputation quests.

Karst in the tavern now completes the Throne of the Dread Terror deeds and grants Throne of the Dread Terror tokens.

Rock in the tavern basement now has quests for Silver Signets of the Thandrim and North Ithilien barter items.

Dungeons of Naerband - A new chest has been added for players who make it out of the Dungeons of Flame section of the Instance.

Dungeons of Naerband - Voice over and dialogue text was added to major Boss attacks. Dialogue text has been added to Orc and Uruk mobs for some of their attacks.

Dungeons of Naerband - The door to Thraknûl's area should reset more reliably when the fight resets.

Dungeons of Naerband - Thraknûl's Chains of Malice attack includes an induction and different effect icon.

Dungeons of Naerband - Damage done by the anti-healing debuffs has been reduced.

Dungeons of Naerband - Thraknûl is more resistant to unintentionally resetting when being kited.

Dungeons of Naerband - Fewer trash mobs will spawn between the first and second boss fights. Additionally, area-of-effect damage from Thraknûl and the Flame-spirits has been further reduced.

The first door in The Court of Seregost can now be opened in combat (but remains locked during the boss fight) to prevent players from getting stuck inside.

Ash of Gorgoroth has currency cap of 10,000.

North Ithilien Essences are now bound to account by default.

Missing farming ingredients were added to some Crafting Suppliers.

Steed of the Moon Moth naming inconsistencies are cleaned up.

The mount collections that previously granted titles have been replaced with deeds. To advance one of the mount collection deeds, you must use that mount skill (from the mount collections panel or from skill panel, mounts tab.) New mount collection deeds/titles have also been added for the 2015 & 2016 Festival steeds, Goat mounts, and Gondor mounts!

Crafting - The Anorien Expertise Token may now be consumed in a recipe also available from skirmish barterers.

The stable travel route to the First Hall should now drop you off in the correct spot in front of the stable master.

The quest "Lost Lore of Gorgoroth: Agarnaith" now rewards the correct reputation.

Human female mood animations have been updated.

Players who have logged out in the Vales of Anduin may be sent to Archet upon logging in. This is because the absolute location of the Beorning starting area has been moved. Other than this possible teleport, you should notice no difference in the Vales of Anduin.

Equipment - Level 105 Featured Instance Armour sets will once again be item level 222.

Crafting - Fragments of Gorgoroth Dungeons will have the proper plural name when stacked.

Instance: A Trap for the Creature should no longer break when using the flat stone too soon.

The Court of Seregost: Black Númenórean-slayer deed now indicates how many need to be defeated.

The Weeping Reeds in Agarnaith for the quest Flora Investigation are now visible above ground.

Coldan and Hithgol in Dor Amarth have been cosmetically adjusted to better suit their role and surroundings.

Camp site fires in Taur Druadan, Lossarnach, and the Wastes now allow Burglars to Contact Pedlar.

The Lossarnach quest "The Smoke Lures" no longer requires Orcs to be defeated.

Recent mounts such as Steed of Elessar's Host, Sunflower Steed, Rescued Steed of Agarnaith, Goat of the Harvest Sky, and Steed of Eldar Autumn have been added to the Mounts Collection display.

The Lossoth Steed and Steed of the Dusk-watch now have correct source information in the Mounts Collection panel.

The Skeleton Steed Rider Bundle can now be used (opened) even if you already have the Riding trait.

Minor performance improvements were made to the loading of the mounts collection page. Please let us know if you notice anything failing to load properly.

The Quartermaster "Conquest of Gorgoroth Rewards" now carries a slate of new housing items including statues, stained glass, and decorative flower garlands.

The character panel no longer hides equipped items that are in the loot filter.

The cat wander sequence plays smoothly now.

When a quest is filtered but underway, characters can still interact, advance, and turn in the quest.

Players should no longer see a Free Hobbit Present button immediately following the redemption of a free present.

To fix an issue that could prevent their use, the Poorly Hidden Chest, Out-of-Place Strongbox, Out-of-Place Lockbox, and Out-of-Place Chest in the haunted burrow will now disappear and respawn after each opening.

Lore-master pets and Captain soldiers were collecting mobs from a greater area of landscape than desired. Their aggro radius has been halved.

Collections panel model views are now slightly bigger.

Kinship leaders are no longer required to abandon a premium kinship house to receive housing writs prior to disbanding a kinship.

Various small bug fixes for Ilex branches spawned in tree, the exit to Boffin Manor, two patrons in a Bree auction house are sitting on nothing, an invisible water volume, Ralthat's awkwardly positioned shield, floating planks of wood, a floating bush, an oddly misshapen rock formation, and an npc floating over bench.

The quest bestowal UI in German should now correctly fit the indicators for solo, small fellowship, fellowship, and raid quests.

Portions of Agarnaith should no longer be overrun with limitless cave claws.

'Daily Request: An Errand for Frodo' has been restructured. Now the random spawns of Imprisoned Nurnhoth in Naerband have been replaced with static spawns, and should be a less frustrating experience.

Gorgoroth Steel-bound lootboxes now carry new housing items, including statues of Sauron, watcher statues, and a way to play "The floor is lava".

The respawn timers on the Haunted Burrow Poorly Hidden Chest, Out-of-Place Strongbox, Out-of-Place Lockbox, and Out-of-Place Chest have been halved.

Kite cosmetic pets will now settle at a lower height when you are indoors.

Level 106 - 115 landscape mobs will no longer have a chance to drop incomparable equipment. Mobs in the resource instances will continue to drop incomparable equipment.

A variety of landscape bugs were fixed including rock texture missing in Lhingris, a stuck spot in the Ruins of Barad-dur, a floating pillar in Udun, an area in Dum Boha that was tagged as part of Mordor rather than as part of the Wastes, a bridge in Dum Boha that you could fall through, floating resource nodes in various areas, and an unintentional underwater slag pile hidey hole.

Sighterseer's Trousers will no longer change color based on the dye applied to your chest piece.

The High Sorcerer of Harad in the High-elf starting area has been given an appropriate weapon.

You can no longer disenchant items if you do not have room for the resulting Ash of Gorgoroth.

Cooks have a few new Doomfold recipes automatically granted to them.

Some gloves and helmets available at the skirmish camps, as well as cosmetic rune-keeper satchels are no longer invisible on High-elf characters.

Mounts - Steed of Agarnaith now offers 68% move speed and 250 Morale, an improvement from its previous stats.

thank you very much for paying attention to pvmp and listening to the pvp players.
i still would like to see defiler in combat res, freeps have many ways to burst 1 creep down and in 6vs6 fights you normally have only 1 WL and if he dead you basically have 0 res, so the fight is kinda over

Read below for my detailed review, but I'm a little disappointed with what happened this build. Appreciate of the Crit changes and Racial changes for Creeps, (crit defense was nice as well), but nothing about Burglars or Hunters, and Mitigations were REDUCED from what we had LAST build (which wasn't enough even then).

--

Alright, so a brief summation of changes, not as mathematical as the last feedback, as it seems the buffs were filled in through the class base stats from passive contribution:

I won't go into detail in analyzing that, I'll leave that to Vastin. However, from a Warg perspective, here's what is lacking, and (sadly) what we regressed on with this update compared to last Build.

Overall Stat Changes:

All comparison made from last build to this build

-------------

Base Critical Rating is still 0, however the base Melee % is up to 14.1% 4.4%

I'm a big fan of this. With no Crit Corruptions slotted, Critical % isn't terrible, and with class passives, you can reach about 30% with 3 corruptions, which is exactly where we should be. There's still a motivation for slotting 6 crit for additional Crit Mag, but it significantly reduces the discrepancy between the Creep classes.

----------------

Finesse is still 5.9%, however Passives (including Finesse) have been buffed. I understand that SSG is trying to cover their Finesse corruption mistake, but we still cannot afford to slot Finesse mitigations. Base Finesse needs to be buffed by AT LEAST 3-5% across the board, OR it needs to be re-introduced back as part of rank, and topped out at around 15-16%. This MUST go into effect. THIS MUST NOT GO LIVE.

----------------

Crit Defense went from 4k to 37,500, 8.7% to 47.2%

GREAT change, however, this does NOT address Burglar's and Hunters capability to hit insane Crit Magnitude, ESPECIALLY from DoT sources, as Critical Defense DOES NOT affect DoTs of ANY kind.

---------------

BPE for wargs:

Block: 5.8% to 8.6%
Evade: 9% to 10.2%
Parry: 7.8% to 9.3%

I do NOT like these changes, as it also increases partial BPE chance. Creeps do NOT need more RNG defense (hoping for a BPE to reduce overall damage), but to OVERALL reduce incoming damage through consistent means like mitigations and -inc% damage sources. BPE was fine with last build, this was NOT needed. All this will do is decrease Freep quality of life through frustration of BPE and Partial BPEs

----------------

Specific Cry Resist lowered from 45,000 to 34,000. Good change, reasonable resist is fine, shouldn't be a major effect on overall balance.

This is BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD. I gave specific number increases that were needed to add to base Creep mitigations- those numbers were NOT added, an as insult to injury, Corruptions were nerfed MORE than I asked (the nerf being conditional on the base stat buff). Overall Creep mitigations have received only a few % points increase from LIVE to this CURRENT BUILD. This is TERRIBLE news for Creeps, and is going to lead to some very unhappy folks. THIS MUST NOT GO LIVE.

Please refer to my previous post (https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...rical-Feedback) for reference on what needs to happen to Creep mitigations. Creep mits were headed in the right direction last build, but just needed to be turned away from Corruptions and a bit more towards base stat. We took a step backwards with this build for apparently no reason. Please fix this.

-------------

ETC:

Morale buff was nerfed by a bit
IMPORTANT: Incoming Healing still seems to be completely missing as a stat. This is HUGE, as even at rank 13, the bonus is more than 35% in terms of healing received from EVERY source (including Pots). This is a HUGE nerf to Creeps. I completely understand that mass healing is not what we want, but this is too much too fast. Either revert the changes, or give Creeps a flat 25% incoming healing stat. THIS MUST NOT GO LIVE.

Various passives were minorly buffed. Results will differ upon class.

Overall BIG things that need to happen ASAP:

1. Creep defensives through BASE MITIGATION and -INCOMING DAMAGE SOURCE (same source that Tome of Defenses apply to) needs to be buffed. I'm fine with the mitigation corruption nerf, but they MUST be increased by at least another 5%. The critical defense change was good, but not enough, ESPECIALLY considering Critical Defense DOES NOT affect DoTs of ANY kind.

New beta, but cappy still have reverse yellow and blue set bonuses (useless bonuses, but it still sad). Red line set bonus - very ugly, so i happy that cappy no need raid armor set.
My prediction - it will not be fixed.
Also herald armaments +2% damage doesnt work.

Welcome to our fifth open preview of Update 21.3. These notes are for Bullroarer, released on Thursday November 30th. Both the notes and the update are a work in progress, so you should expect things will change over time. We look forward to hearing your feedback and receiving your bug reports.

Ok. I've read through the notes twice and it seems there have been some minor but NOT INSIGNIFICANT (well maybe insignificant next to the power of the force but still) changes to at least some of the things people were concerned about.

I'll start with those changes in this build that concerns those issues.

Originally Posted by Tybur

The Featured Instance cap level rewards boxes will now drop either an Enchanted Gorgoroth Adamant or 2 Slivers of Black Steel. The Enchanted Gorgoroth Adamant will now disenchant for 40 Ashes of Gorgoroth.

Bound Black Steel Keys will now be bound to account.

Definetly steps in the right direction imo.

It would have been nice if Cordovan had recieved notes with those changes before his livestream yesterday/friday. These changes might seem small but are acctually not insignificant and would probably have been recieved as partly "good" news by the community. FI update is very much welcome. A purely positive change. As for the Black Steel Keys becoming Account bound is still a big step down from unbound keys. However it is also a positive change compared to previous bullroarer U21.3 builds.

When Cordovan was asked specifically about these changes in his stream he said they would still be as in previous builds. Black Steel keys from dailies would still be character bound etc. You could have avoided alot of negativity by keeping poor Cordovan updated. I feel sorry for Cordovan now considering yesterdays stream. *giving Cordovan a big hug* Something to consider for the future. It's important to keep the community manager up to date as he is the player communities main contact and source of information.

These changes do indicate that You have indeed listened to the community feedback to some extent. In the stream we got the feeling You had not, as nothing had changed. Yes You have not met us all the way but at least a bit. That is a good thing and important for the community to feel we are listened to and our concerns met to some degree.

The below listed things are still in the update I see.

Originally Posted by Tybur

Naerband and Seregost instance chests now have a 1-day lock on them. Equipment drop rates for these chests have also been increased substantially.

Level 106 - 115 landscape mobs will no longer have a chance to drop incomparable equipment. Mobs in the resource instances will continue to drop incomparable equipment.

The Gorgorth Daily Expedition quests now award 2 Slivers of Black Steel each so that you can earn Black Steel Keys equally from any daily expedition.

Ash of Gorgoroth has currency cap of 10,000.

You can no longer disenchant items if you do not have room for the resulting Ash of Gorgoroth.

That 1-day lock on 3-man and 6-man is a very unpopular change. Just saying. So is the removal of landscape drops but I think it's safe to say (after reading many threads and comments) that the 1-day lock is even less popular.

The issue of dailies changed to reward only slivers = bound keys, I adressed above and with the new change that they keys will at least be account bound (not character bound) it is less bad then previous builds. Still You won't be able to help friends or family members but not as bad as character bound I guess. I still however see this is a way to try to get people to buy keys in store and trade those instead. A push to increase lootbox key sales. No one is treally buying the explanation that it was never intended that daily keys should be unbound. People just don't buy it (that is obvious to see from other threads). Especially not since it has been earlier stated that they were "working as intended".

As for the cap You earlier said that the 10.000 cap was just a test number and that the live cap will be higher. Is that still so ??? I'm nowhere naar even 10K so not an issue for me but I think it could be for others. And potentially for the future as well as some might have their main and alts geared up and reach that 10K cap and then all drops will be useless for them as they can not do anything with them. Well they can keep them, for turnin into ash later on, if their character have enough storage space or vendor them but still kind of annoying I guess.

Also it seems on last weeks build that if You had over 10K ash as You entered Bullroarer all the ash above 10K just vanished. That was another thing You mentioned before that it would not. I did not test it as I don't have 10K+ ash but i heard a few others saying this was happening.

Originally Posted by Tybur

Gorgoroth Steel-bound lootboxes now carry new housing items, including statues of Sauron, watcher statues, and a way to play "The floor is lava".

To keep putting more and more various that are totally of no interest to different style of players just dilute the boxes. Over time it could get more and more diluted. Making the GAMBLING % chance worse and worse. Like Some might only be after gear and ash while others might be afterdecoration or cosmetics. It will only frustrate players with this lootbox gambling RNG when they get things that are totally away from what they were after. One way would be to make decorations ashable as well like You did with the cosmetic weapon skins. Still that would only please the ones not after decorations. The ones after decorations would still often end up with things not related to what they seek. I still feel that it should be totally separated. Different systems. Cosmetic skins and decoration should be for those that enjoys that and gear, ash etc for those that seeks that. Personally I wopuld reffer nothing in lootboxes, no lootboxes in any game but as I don't think that will happen anytime soon, unless new laws or directives on a political level are issued, at least separate these things into different lootboxes or something for now. You will only make people frustrated and pi**ed off when they open box after box and get (in their eyes) rubbish.

I also find this new raid instance reward mechanics interesting now that I start to grasp how it will acctually work.

Originally Posted by Tybur

Notes:

To enter the new Raid, you will need to Discover the Abyss of Mordath. Find the door in the Chamber of the Watchers in the lower levels of Barad-dur (Western edge of the Barad-dur map on the lower corridor branching).

Instance chests can now drop items that are "Fellowship Tradeable". These items can be freely traded amongst fellowship / raid members that were present in the instance space when the chest was created, until the Fellowship Tradeable timer expires. These items will list a "Item binds in:" timer in their tooltip. These items cannot be mailed or auctioned. These items cannot be stacked until the Fellowship Tradeable timer expires. Currently only The Abyss of Mordath chests use this new tech.

Abyss of Mordath rewards:

Incomparable set gear will drop from raid chests (in a picker box so you can select the set piece right for your character). This incomparable gear will be item level 345, and will have a chance to receive bonus item levels when it comes out of the box.

The Incomparable set gear helms, incomparable pocket items, and incomparable necklaces will be craftable items, and will require a fragment of the abyss crafting component from the raid.

Other incomparable pieces from the raid (essences, other jewellery) and all rare gear from the raid will be item level 337.

Once you have completed the Tier 2 raid deed, you will be able to barter for all of the incomparable raid gear on the Masters of Mordor Lore. This allows you to use Ash of Gorgorth to barter for pieces that just haven't dropped for you in the raid. The bartered gear does not have a chance to receive bonus item levels. Note that npcs in this current build may have some gear incorrectly available for barter.

Combined with this known issue, I think I finally grasp exactly how it is supposes to work.

Originally Posted by Tybur

Known Issues:

Equipment that drops in the raid should bind to account (once the bind on raid group has expired) and only bind to character on equip. Currently anything not in a selection box is bind to character on acquire (once the bind on raid group has expired).

Sounds on paper as a nice system. You have like X time to barter with the group/raid in case You rolled on the wrong item and even more than that as once that timer expires You can still even trade it to one of Your alts. Nice for raids.

Still I preffer unbound items over this. Sure for the raid but at least make other "normal" instances in the game still drop items that are not bound in any way. People often use such items to pass on to alts, friends, family members etc and help them level up. Don't make this game more alt or co-op unfriendly than it already has become over tha last period of time.

The pick boxes are potentially nice but could also potentially be bad. Not sure if You still roll on it or all participating are automatically rewarded a pick box as You open the last chest ??? The RNG chance to recieve "bonuses" on gear pieces sounds not so good. You could end up getting gear pieces with no bonuses and have to grind the instance/raid over and over. First potentially RNG if You even get the pick box, then RNG if Your gear from it has bonuses. Too many levels of chance/RNG. I preffered when You got X amount of some barter currency and then could barter that for the exact piece You want knowing all its stats and bonuses. That way You always felt You were progressing, not in the hands of RNGesus. Yes You can barter with ash but those pieces will not have the bonuses either. This RNG seems to only be there to make people having to play the same content over and over rather than to have to add new content to the game. It was frustrating in Moria, having to grind an instance over and over in hopes to win a roll, it will be equally frustrating now. That was why it was later changed to the barter currency system. This could potentially be a step backwards.

Most of this will not affect me my son or me, as we rarely get to join any end-game raids, as by the time we're geared up next update is released (like the majority of the playerbase i guess). Still I can see how this can be frustrating for those that will be able to participate in the new raid.

Also same as last week.

Originally Posted by Tybur

Item level 337 incomparable armour (without set bonuses, not including the helm), rings, earrings, bracelets, offhands, and essences will be available in Gorgoroth lootboxes.

Rare item level 337 gear of all types will be available in the raid, in Gorgoroth lootboxes, and for barter with no restrictions.

Well since End game top raid gear will be item level 345 and this gear will be 337 I guess this will at least please the raiders. Not sure how big difference there is in stats between 337 and 345. As long as we don't end up with a huge gap like we had in Moria between instance gear and all other gear. It should of course be better but not to a ridicolous degree.

I've never been a fan of gating crafting materials behind forcing people to grind instances and even worse raids. You can not and should not try to force mold everyone into instances or raid grinders. This only puts the raiders on top and can make a fortune selling the ingredients, while at the same time excluding everyone else. Just dividing and creating a gap in the community. The Elite vs everyone else. I don't like that system irl and acctually go into the fantasy realm to get away for a moment from such real life systems.

Originally Posted by Tybur

The Incomparable set gear helms, incomparable pocket items, and incomparable necklaces will be craftable items, and will require a fragment of the abyss crafting component from the raid.

Not sure what this whole Bind to character or bound to account trend is all about ??? Even going back to make sure old rewards are account bound seems strange. They're not even end game items.

Originally Posted by Tybur

North Ithilien Essences are now bound to account by default.

Small changes like this I like. It's a shame that they often they slip by unnoticed. I like that someone in staff is paying attention to details that higthen immersion.

Originally Posted by Tybur

Coldan and Hithgol in Dor Amarth have been cosmetically adjusted to better suit their role and surroundings.

Does this mean that they will finally reward the correct Mordor barter tokens now ??? Also nice that the deed will finally be able to be completed.

Rare spawns have been added in Agarnaith and Dor Amarth. This allows Hidden Threats of Gorgoroth to be able to be completed.

I'm sure this will make cooks happy. Those hobbitttsesss.

Originally Posted by Tybur

Cooks have a few new Doomfold recipes automatically granted to them.

Ok, so with this You do acctually unbind something that is part of the latest content while above binding something that is of lesser value/interest ??? Very confusing. Still I like unbound items, so this is a good change.

Very nice additions. I have acctually held off with some characters as I wanted to record (with a new pc I'm buying parts for to build) the epic instances on the battle field and the one with the eagles. This has made those characters totaly stuck in progression as mordor quests are gated behind completing those. Hopefully now one will be able to repeat those instead ???

Originally Posted by Tybur

A Reflecting Pool for the Wastes has been added to Haerondir, allowing you to replay many instances from that region.

A Reflecting Pool for Gorgoroth has been added near the Ruins of Dingarth, allowing you to replay many instances from that region.

Hopefully these things will please some of the PvMPers. Just make sure You don't go overboard. There are still classes among the monsters/creeps that are very powerful (wargs, spiders, defilers) even if some try to make it sound as if all creeps can be killed with one hit by all freeps, he he he !!! :P

Originally Posted by Tybur

Focus for this Beta:
Please join us this weekend and provide feedback on The Abyss of Mordath Raid and additional changes that have been made to Monster Players. For the raid, the final boss fight should now be accessible and contain more of the final mechanics. We look forward to your feedback on tier 1 and tier 2 runs. Please note that the tier 1 locks have changed and some gear tweaks have also been made since the last preview. For Monster Player characters, several changes have been made to base Monster Player stats and traits. While this work is not yet complete, it should be an improvement from the prior set of changes. Your feedback on how these changes work in action would be greatly appreciated.

New in this build:

Monster Player character base stats and traits have been adjusted. Generally this should increase Creep mitigations and reduce the overall damage of critical hits (on both sides) by increasing critical defence while decreasing crit magnitude bonuses. Some racial bonuses were also updated. As before, this is very much a work in progress and benefits from feedback, so please take these changes out for a spin in the Ettenmoors.

PvMP - Black Arrow Explosive Arrow delayed AOE damage will only affect Free Players in the Ettenmoors and PvMP Osgiliath. The delayed AOE damage will no longer affect npcs, player pets, or mobs.

So to sum it up. Better than the 2 previous builds. Mainly Talking about the keys here and FI. Not perfect but a step in the right direction as from last week and the week before. Still a step down though, as for some changes, from what's current on live. Like removing landscape LoE drops and especially the 1-day lock on 3-man and 6-man. It all just becomes a slower grind now to get any progression and also limits even more what content You can play to progress/gear up.

Last edited by Lord.Funk; Dec 01 2017 at 03:44 AM.

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." /Edward SnowdenNever The Spy-Tool Windows 10 Who needs DirectX 12 anyway ??? Vulkan is better. :)

Beorning Skill - Expose - Now usable in Bear form and Man form. In Man form skill will continue to apply mitigation reduction of +40%, but in Bear form the skill will apply a mitigation reduction of +15%.

This is a good change, allowing bears to gain wrath in Bear form, but its buff is only affecting the Beorning. Change this skill so it puts a -40% mitigation debuff on the target instead of just giving Beorning the mitigation penetration, which it does so now. Maybe change it to -40% Physical Mitigation on the target, that would be a welcome change for melee DPS in groups. Give the Bee Swarm skill a 5% incoming critical chance debuff as well, and maybe, just maybe there will be a spot for Beornings in end-game groups.

Beorning Skill - Expose - Now usable in Bear form and Man form. In Man form skill will continue to apply mitigation reduction of +40%, but in Bear form the skill will apply a mitigation reduction of +15%.

This is another one of those changes that don't change anything.

Using expose in bear form is now a DPS loss since entering bear form refreshes man form expose in duration so you'd need to stay in bear form for ~16 seconds for this to be useful. Red bears can't stay in bear form that long due to the wrath costs of using their skills, the only scenario in which they might stay in bear form is if they use call to wild first but even there you're probably going to get more value out of returning to man form to refresh the buff.

Originally Posted by Araphorn

Change this skill so it puts a -40% mitigation debuff on the target instead of just giving Beorning the mitigation penetration, which it does so now. Maybe change it to -40% Physical Mitigation on the target, that would be a welcome change for melee DPS in groups. Give the Bee Swarm skill a 5% incoming critical chance debuff as well, and maybe, just maybe there will be a spot for Beornings in end-game groups.

Uh huh. If you want buffs for red champs then stick to asking for buffs to red champs. Beornings themselves would be better off if expose was removed entirely.

If you want to ask for red champion buffs do you mind sticking to talking about champions rather than proposing detrimental changes to classes you do not play in order to serve your own selfish ends? Thanks.

If you want to ask for red champion buffs do you mind sticking to talking about champions rather than proposing detrimental changes to classes you do not play in order to serve your own selfish ends? Thanks.

That's a bit more reasonable, thanks.

My point still stands though, no matter what you write here. I'm giving feedback and I suggest you should do the same instead of trying to put me off. You have no authority here. And what I suggested isn't detrimental to the class, I don't see any of your suggestions here which will make bears more viable in raids.

The result is the same. So depending on whether it's calculated additively or multiplicatively, either 4% or 8% could be correct.
How do we find out how it's calculated? Just add another buff, e.g. 5% Duty Bound. No the value would be:

143% + 5% = 148%
1.43 * 1.05 = 150.15%

The result isn't the same any more. Test it in-game and we can see that morale buffs are indeed calculated multiplicatively and not additively.

Do you still remember that the Steeled Resolve tooltip did not always say 8%? A couple of years ago the tooltip said 4%. Now my theory is that some player incorrectly assumed that morale buffs are calculated additively rather than multiplicatively and submitted a bug report explaining how the tooltip is wrong (when it was actually correct). The responsible developer also incorrectly assumed that morale buffs stack additively and "fixed" the tooltip.

Btw while I also would like to see it fixed, I think this really is a minor issue and doesn't need an oversized yellow headline to attract the Devs attention.

And what I suggested isn't detrimental to the class, I don't see any of your suggestions here which will make bears more viable in raids.

Expose applying to the mob would reduce red Beorning to being a class that simply runs around in man form hitting expose on everything since their DPS would still be awful and thus they'd add more to the group by buffing others rather than trying to do things themselves. Overall that's a pretty miserable way to play and rather detrimental to the purpose of red bear.

You're not going to see any good suggestions on how to make Beornings viable because the class is conceptually flawed and needs to be revamped (something that SSG refuses to do currently). So please, if you are going to make proposals for Beornings make sure that those proposals are for the Beornings benefit and not for the benefit of somebody else.

To keep putting more and more various that are totally of no interest to different style of players just dilute the boxes. Over time it could get more and more diluted. Making the GAMBLING % chance worse and worse. Like Some might only be after gear and ash while others might be afterdecoration or cosmetics. It will only frustrate players with this lootbox gambling RNG when they get things that are totally away from what they were after. One way would be to make decorations ashable as well like You did with the cosmetic weapon skins. Still that would only please the ones not after decorations. The ones after decorations would still often end up with things not related to what they seek. I still feel that it should be totally separated. Different systems. Cosmetic skins and decoration should be for those that enjoys that and gear, ash etc for those that seeks that. Personally I wopuld reffer nothing in lootboxes, no lootboxes in any game but as I don't think that will happen anytime soon, unless new laws or directives on a political level are issued, at least separate these things into different lootboxes or something for now. You will only make people frustrated and pi**ed off when they open box after box and get (in their eyes) rubbish.

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This is my major issue with the boxes, they have diluted twice already now going on three times. When explained to some they ignore it to defend with an iron sword. But here is the deal. Take me as a player. I love cosmetics and housing stuff I will admit it. I would GLADLY SPEND MONEY to buy these items either in the store or Lailas marketplace. But no, because they are a gambling reward I do not bother. If I get something off my dailies for a free key than cool no loss to me. But SSG loses money because I am not spending any on keys that again I would spend if available outright. There should not be any item in those boxes we can Not Acquire In Game Another Way, Having those items makes it gambling. So my question becomes how many players like myself are NOT spending money on keys that WOULD spend money on these items. In the end, SSG loses which means ALL players LOSE

Expose applying to the mob would reduce red Beorning to being a class that simply runs around in man form hitting expose on everything since their DPS would still be awful and thus they'd add more to the group by buffing others rather than trying to do things themselves. Overall that's a pretty miserable way to play and rather detrimental to the purpose of red bear.

You're not going to see any good suggestions on how to make Beornings viable because the class is conceptually flawed and needs to be revamped (something that SSG refuses to do currently). So please, if you are going to make proposals for Beornings make sure that those proposals are for the Beornings benefit and not for the benefit of somebody else.

Ok, so you want to keep the class useless in hopes for a revamp which will most likely never come, gotcha.

You have your own opinions and I have mine, and I'm not gonna be wasting my weekend time with some bickering pointless pixels.

Expose applying to the mob would reduce red Beorning to being a class that simply runs around in man form hitting expose on everything since their DPS would still be awful and thus they'd add more to the group by buffing others rather than trying to do things themselves. Overall that's a pretty miserable way to play and rather detrimental to the purpose of red bear.

The problem is that you can tell the same about red cappy, which is a class that simply runs around hitting sure strike and throwing OB every 2 mins because their dps is awful. The change that was proposed will give at least some rational reason for using beorning for group content. I absolutely agree that beorning needs the whole revamp, but let's be realistic: SSG will not do it. The developers are obviously unable to provide even minor changes to fix class balance in the game, so expecting them to do any class revamps is a joke. Under these circumstances, offering a minor improvement that can benefit both a bernoning and other physical dps seems to be the only realistic way of doing things (even while I do not see developers being able to do anything except twisting some percentages, unfortunately).

The problem is that you can tell the same about red cappy, which is a class that simply runs around hitting sure strike and throwing OB every 2 mins because their dps is awful. The change that was proposed will give at least some rational reason for using beorning for group content. I absolutely agree that beorning needs the whole revamp, but let's be realistic: SSG will not do it. The developers are obviously unable to provide even minor changes to fix class balance in the game, so expecting them to do any class revamps is a joke. Under these circumstances, offering a minor improvement that can benefit both a bernoning and other physical dps seems to be the only realistic way of doing things (even while I do not see developers being able to do anything except twisting some percentages, unfortunately).

Exactly my point! Thanks for understanding. Expecting anything beyond a few band-aid fixes for classes is just like waiting for a train ticket to the moon.

The problem is that you can tell the same about red cappy, which is a class that simply runs around hitting sure strike and throwing OB every 2 mins because their dps is awful.

It's not quite the same case. Red captain is designed as a support traitline with the ability to rez, buff in a variety of ways, offer some healing and do some mediocre DPS. A red Beorning is quite clearly a ST DPS line (albeit a terrible one) that doesn't actually gain anything for this role if the suggested expose change was implemented. Instead it would stop doing that role entirely and be pushed into running around tagging every mob with a single skill because that is the most valuable thing it can contribute.

I really don't care for a change that makes it somewhat necessary to take a Beorning into a group due to sheer buffing potential if that same change makes the class totally boring to play. I actually don't like any class being necessary in a group composition, I'd rather the players could just take what they enjoy most (within reason, a group of 12 healers should naturally fall flat). Araphorn doesn't really care about Beornings in this situation, he just wants a buff to make red champions a competitive choice for ST DPS which is a totally reasonable request. He just needs to stop pretending that he was trying to help Beornings into groups in this case and focus on the fact that red champion DPS needs buffs or the competition for ST DPS needs nerfs.

People just need to be honest and state their case for what they want to happen, don't try to disguise your wants as a noble plea to help the less fortunate or whatever.

Honestly, it's pretty frustrating to see the only work done towards "class balance" are the useless/ineffective changes to the Beorning class that doesn't change the class' position whatsoever. Good job on wasting those resources...

Instead, Araphorn's suggestion of making them physical mitigation debuffer is actually a great idea. It would be such a simple and effective solution. It would somewhat balance the mitigation debuffing in a raid scenario between tactical(fire) type damage and physical(beleriand) type damage and at the same time it might actually give the class a position in the raid. Potentially solving 2 problems at the same time.

Originally Posted by Joedangod

A red Beorning is quite clearly a ST DPS line (albeit a terrible one) that doesn't actually gain anything for this role if the suggested expose change was implemented.

DPS lines in this game bring their raw DPS and their utility. There is nothing wrong to give a dps line some utility. RK Red line is also a ST DPS line but it has strong armor debuffing potential (-%20 fire mit, -%15 Armor Rating). Why not Beornings? I understand that it might make the class a bit boring to play, but if it's giving the class a raid spot, it would be a good change.

Originally Posted by Joedangod

Araphorn doesn't really care about Beornings in this situation, he just wants a buff to make red champions a competitive choice for ST DPS which is a totally reasonable request. He just needs to stop pretending that he was trying to help Beornings into groups in this case and focus on the fact that red champion DPS needs buffs or the competition for ST DPS needs nerfs.

He is not proposing this change just for champ bias.... Let me tell you about the real bias going on currently. There is a clear imbalance between damage types in this game. Fire type damage has been totally overpowered over the years and it doesn't bat anyone's eye... It's making any other damage type useless and braking the class balance even more in a raid scenario. Lore-master (-%30) and Rune-Keeper (-%20) can put out a -%50 fire mitigation debuff besides from all the armor debuffs. Other damage types doesn't get the same treatment causing an inevitable imbalance between dps classes. Every damage types must have the same debuffing potential for any meaningful class balance.

Besides, this change wouldn't effect just the red champ... It would increase red warden, red burg, red guard dps as well which are exactly the classes that needs a dps buff currently...

Maybe I'm just paranoid now after all the recent changes and some in staff not knowing what the others are doing and so on.

But is it confirmed that this really means the future black steel keys we will be rewarded from daily allegiance quests and slivers will be account bound? Not just meaning that the keys we currently hold will turn into account bound while new keys will be character bound?

DPS lines in this game bring their raw DPS and their utility. There is nothing wrong to give a dps line some utility. RK Red line is also a ST DPS line but it has strong armor debuffing potential (-%20 fire mit, -%15 Armor Rating). Why not Beornings? I understand that it might make the class a bit boring to play, but if it's giving the class a raid spot, it would be a good change.

To clarify; I do not think that Beornings should be given a raid spot. Nobody should be given a raid spot. The system should really be working on a role basis where you need X tanks, Y healers, Z DPS and W support. This whole "We need 2 minstrels, an LM, 2 Captains...." situation we have today is one of the main reasons why LOTRO raiding is dying out further despite the players Throne brought back. The only thing that makes running a single raid fun each week is variety and that is not something LOTRO currently allows. Slapping a massive mitigation debuff on Beorning like this just makes the problem worse because now if you want to maximise your physical DPS you have to recruit a Beorning for each run (are there even enough 115 Beornings per server to do that?)

If you were saying "Hey, let's buff red Beorning base damage up, make the rotation a bit more complex and thus let them compete for ST DPS" then I would agree that sounds like a wonderful idea and just what the class could use. Instead you're saying "Hey, let's tweak red Beornings to instead buff everyone else around them so that they focus on supporting groups with one button rather than DPS. I'm sure they'll thank us for the opportunity to come into raids and make other people shine at their role".

Originally Posted by Wulfdur

He is not proposing this change just for champ bias.... Let me tell you about the real bias going on currently. There is a clear imbalance between damage types in this game. Fire type damage has been totally overpowered over the years and it doesn't bat anyone's eye... It's making any other damage type useless and braking the class balance even more in a raid scenario. Lore-master (-%30) and Rune-Keeper (-%20) can put out a -%50 fire mitigation debuff besides from all the armor debuffs. Other damage types doesn't get the same treatment causing an inevitable imbalance between dps classes. Every damage types must have the same debuffing potential for any meaningful class balance.

Besides, this change wouldn't effect just the red champ... It would increase red warden, red burg, red guard dps as well which are exactly the classes that needs a dps buff currently...

This change doesn't affect the class at the centre of it: Beorning remains a shoddy DPS who now doesn't even get to DPS in groups. Advocate for physical debuffs all you like, just don't advocate for it at the expense of the traitline/class you are ostensibly trying to get a place in groups.

Honestly, it's pretty frustrating to see the only work done towards "class balance" are the useless/ineffective changes to the Beorning class that doesn't change the class' position whatsoever. Good job on wasting those resources...

Instead, Araphorn's suggestion of making them physical mitigation debuffer is actually a great idea. It would be such a simple and effective solution. It would somewhat balance the mitigation debuffing in a raid scenario between tactical(fire) type damage and physical(beleriand) type damage and at the same time it might actually give the class a position in the raid. Potentially solving 2 problems at the same time.

DPS lines in this game bring their raw DPS and their utility. There is nothing wrong to give a dps line some utility. RK Red line is also a ST DPS line but it has strong armor debuffing potential (-%20 fire mit, -%15 Armor Rating). Why not Beornings? I understand that it might make the class a bit boring to play, but if it's giving the class a raid spot, it would be a good change.

He is not proposing this change just for champ bias.... Let me tell you about the real bias going on currently. There is a clear imbalance between damage types in this game. Fire type damage has been totally overpowered over the years and it doesn't bat anyone's eye... It's making any other damage type useless and braking the class balance even more in a raid scenario. Lore-master (-%30) and Rune-Keeper (-%20) can put out a -%50 fire mitigation debuff besides from all the armor debuffs. Other damage types doesn't get the same treatment causing an inevitable imbalance between dps classes. Every damage types must have the same debuffing potential for any meaningful class balance.

Besides, this change wouldn't effect just the red champ... It would increase red warden, red burg, red guard dps as well which are exactly the classes that needs a dps buff currently...

This is spot on, exactly what I had in mind as well. Couldn't have said it better myself. We all know devs don't have the manpower to do full class revamps anytime soon (or if at all), so we have to resort to what they can achieve with less, or stop paying and go to another game.

Originally Posted by Joedangod

This change doesn't affect the class at the centre of it: Beorning remains a shoddy DPS who now doesn't even get to DPS in groups. Advocate for physical debuffs all you like, just don't advocate for it at the expense of the traitline/class you are ostensibly trying to get a place in groups.

Boring, as usual. Would you please stop pushing your personal agenda on the class and towards other people? What I have proposed (to the devs, not you) gets bears a definitive spot in the raid and what you have proposed (which is nothing but sad and sour arguments) - gets bears nowhere, not anytime soon anyway. I have a bear very near the level cap, just waiting to get geared, (if they go ahead with what I have proposed)... we have another two level capped bears in our kin, waiting for the same, and I'm pretty sure plenty of people will get their bears ready for the raid if they see they will have a spot.

Not sure why you are on the high horse, me and Wulf (and whoever) can advocate for whatever we want, this is open discussion. Don't like it? I don't care. Move on.